FirstGroup

Employee insight and mobilisation

How do you mobilise employees in a multinational transport business?

The challenge

FirstGroup is a leading public transport provider for the UK and North America, relied on by 2.4 billion passengers every year. The business has around 110,000 employees across five divisions – First Student, First Transit, Greyhound, First Bus and First Rail – with a broad footprint across the UK and North America. FirstGroup came to us with rising engagement scores, looking to continue to embed improvements across the business through insight research.

The solution

We designed an insight programme to identify the key levers of engagement and empowerment in the different businesses, with a comprehensive employee research schedule mapped out to the end of 2019. We survey 110,000 employees across the UK and North America, producing 1,500 individual reports annually for team leaders across the business describing the engagement needs of their people.

To help turn insight into action, we created a range of innovative tools for managers, from an interactive, online action-planning tool to a user-friendly manager’s toolkit with practical engagement tips. These tools are supported by video tutorials. This support ensures insight is converted into practical action that improves the employee experience and, ultimately, secures long-term business performance.

Karian and Box have enabled our organisation to take engagement to the next level in FirstGroup, providing excellent insight for our managers to take critical action to transform engagement in our businesses. Working with them is a true partnership; the Karian and Box team are responsive, proactive and supportive, and have truly integrated into our business, whilst providing challenge and insight in helping FirstGroup move forward.